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Monday, March 1, 2010

[ALOCHONA] Fw: War Crimes Act --Golam Rabbani Waliur Rahman stt.and Daily Star Response



 

Dear sirs,

 

Assalamu Alaikum.Please see the rejoinder and the response on the above subject.For once, Daily Star has given a reasonable response to two biased writers known for their partisan approach in most matters.

In my view the whole thing is an unnecessary exercise.The issue of war crime trial does not exist after 1974 agreement among India and Bangladesh and Pakistan.As a result of that Sheikh sahib did not proceed further though the International crime Tribunal act was legislated in 1973.

 

What is happening now after a long time of 38 years is attempt to victimise Islamic forces of the country.All nations, human right group organizations should try to stop this political agenda of a party and small groups like Ghadani and Sector Commanders forum ( in which all sector commanders are not represented)

Shah Abdul Hannan

Rejoinder

War Crimes Act does not need reform

Photo: Christine Balderas

(The following rejoinder was received by us some days ago. We publish it with our reponse given below).

WITH both anger and amusement we read together a news report, published in the first page of the Daily Star of Dhaka, dated January 26 titled "War crimes Act needs reform" which is, as reported, the opinion of the International Bar Association and to say specifically that of its war crimes committee.

The entire opinion was not reported. We tried in vain to get whole of it and so our reply will be incomplete. At the outset it is necessary to state that the International Bar Association, obviously formed by the professional lawyers, cannot claim and we are sure will not claim to be an humane organisation, but its members are engaged in legal profession on payment of fees to defend the persons accused in criminal offences knowingly or without caring to know whether their clients are guilty or not guilty.

We guess some of the members of this Association may be engaged to defend the accused before the War Crimes Tribunal at Dhaka and we further guess some of them may have already been engaged in anticipation of the trial.

There is "significant omission" as stated in that report with regard to protecting the rights of the accused is erroneous vis-à-vis section 17 of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 (hereinafter called as the said Act) which reads: "17. Right of accused person during trial-(1) During trial of an accused person he shall have the right to give any explanation relevant to the charge made against him. (2) An accused person shall have the right to conduct his own defence before the tribunal or to have the assistance of counsel. (3) An accused person shall have the right to present evidence at the trial in support of his defence, and to cross-examine any witness called by the prosecution. "

Further, if convicted, he shall have the right of appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (read section 21 of the said Act). This provision of right of appeal is a unique guarantee to get the fullest justice and this provision was hitherto unknown to the international laws relating to trial of war criminals. Right to appeal does not exist in the ICC statute, nor in the ongoing trials in Cambodia or Tanzania.

Another opinion that "crime against peace should be deleted as it contains outdated statutory language" is also erroneous. They obviously had not in their mind that the Tribunal at Dhaka shall have to try the crimes committed during the war of liberation in Bangladesh. Pakistan authorities declared an unjust treacherous war and its army from the midnight of 26 March 1971 started killing unarmed innocent civilians which was preplanned crime against peace Section 2(b) of the said Act reads: "Crimes against peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances."

This is the copy in toto of crimes against peace as defined in principle vi (i) of the charter of Nuremberg Tribunal.

Another opinion is that there is no mention of an essential element of a criminal offence, namely, mens rea or the guilty mind in the "crimes against humanity." This is the common law that a criminal offence consists of two elements - mental and physical. But this common law is applicable to ordinary offences under the penal code, but not to the extra-ordinary offences committed during the war. Principle 1 of the charter of Nuremberg Tribunal reads: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment," that is, only the physical element is necessary and not the mental element to constitute a war crime.

It is absurd to keep a provision giving the right to the accused to challenge the constitution of the tribunal or the appointment of its members as suggested. This provision is not even in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but its article 41(2) only gives a futile right: "Any question as to the disqualification of a judge shall be decided by an absolute majority of the judges. The challenged judge shall be entitled to present his or her comments on the matter, but shall not take part in the decision." However, there will be always the inherent right to a judge to feel himself embarrassed and he may feel so, if and when necessary.

Another objection is with regard to the provisions of investigation, in particular rules relating to self-incrimination and the suggestions is article 14 of the International Covenant on political rights as well as certain section of the Rome Statute should be included relating thereto. Prosecution is solely concerned with the investigation and the charge would fail if there is no proper investigation.

We have read together several times article 14 of the International covenant on civil and political rights. For lack of space we are unable to quote that article, but we swear that none of the provisions contained in the said Act of 1973 offences any of provisions contained in that article 14. There is a proviso to article 8(5) of the said Act of 1973 which was not noticed that self-incrimination shall not subject the maker to any arrest or prosecution or be proved against him in any criminal proceeding.

The suggestion that certain sections of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court dealing with rights of suspects during investigations should be included in the Act of 1973 would, we are afraid, further delay the trial. If we compare the preamble of our Act of 1973 with that of the Rome Statute of 2002 we will at once realise that there is not an iota of similarity as to the background against which the Act of 1973 or Rome Statute of 2002 was enacted. Act of 1973 was reviewed and fine-tuned by two of the finest international criminal lawyers, Professor Jeseheck and Prof. Otto Von Trifterer who assisted Justice Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial. The two Professors were drawn from the Maxplank Institute of International Criminal Law, Freibourg, Germany.

Later on in December 26-29, 1974, the Third International Criminal Law Conference at Dhaka, endorsed the 1973 Act: some of the jurists were A.N.F. Ballester, Director of Foundation for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Igor Blishchenko, Professor of International Law Institute, Moscow. Subrata Roy Chowdhury of High Court, Kolkata, B. De Schutter, Director, Center for International Criminal Law, Brussels, Justice Krishna Ayer of Indian Supreme Court, Professor Hans Leu of University of Caraces, Professor Shigeru Oda, of Tohoko University of Japan, Professor Robert K. Woetzel, of International Law, Boston College, USA and President of Foundation for the establishment of an International Criminal Court. It may be mentioned that this conference first mooted the idea of ICC.

We are aggrieved by the report in question. For the persons who have prepared the report in question, we quote from the speech of D.N Pritt of UK made before the international conference on prosecution of nazi criminals held on March 25-28, 1969 at Moscow.

"Moreover, these international crimes are not analogous to crimes committed by individuals against the laws and interests of their own states; they are mass crimes organised and planned by the state and not against it, as part of the policy directed to the destruction of the lives of innumerable civilians including children and women indeed of humanity as a whole, and the individuals taking part in the commission of these crimes are in general acting as the servants and not the antagonists of the state and its government. It follows that those crimes, by their very nature and origin, are not such as can be forgiven by the state or expiated by the passage of time, so as to exonerate these individual perpetrators, but are crimes for which neither the state itself nor the individuals can ever be forgiven."

We would, therefore, request our concerned friends in refraining from making such remarks without fully understanding the history, milieu and background of the history of the war of liberation fought by the Bengalees with the help of the allied forces in winning freedom for establishing a democratic, non-communal, secular and equitable society. The trial thus is a necessity and not a luxury to consolidate the democratic aspirations of the Bengalees, a dream of the Father of the nation.

Justice Mohammad Gholam Rabbani is a former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
Wali-ur Rahman is a former ambassador.

Our response

THE Daily Star would like to make a number of points about the article by Mohammad Gholam Rabbani and Wali-ur Rahman, which was written in response to our news report of January 26 and titled "War crimes act needs reform."

The original January news item reported on legal advice prepared by the International Bar Association' s War Crimes Committee for the UK's All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Committee. The news report did not set out The Daily Star's view on Bangladesh's war crimes legislation but the opinion of this committee as reflected in its legal advice*.

The Daily Star considered it appropriate to report the findings of this committee, since it comprises a renowned group of international criminal lawyers with particular expertise in war crimes law. There are few other similarly expert committees.

Rabbani and Rahman suggest that this committee comprises defence lawyers -- biased toward the interests of those accused of war crimes. But that is not the case.

In fact, the committee's 20-member advisory board includes only two lawyers who have acted in the defence of alleged war criminals. The rest of the committee comprises four senior war crime prosecutors -- including Justice Richard Goldstone who was a former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court. It also includes two judges, Judge Raid Juhi, David Hunt, QC, and Judge Patricia Wald, who sat on the Iraqi, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia tribunals, respectively. The committee also includes a whole host of people with a particular commitment to holding war crimes trials -- including David Scheffer, former US ambassador-at- large for war crimes issues, and Larry Johnson, former UN assistant-secretary -general for legal affairs**.

Rabbani and Rahman also suggest that some of these committee members will be -- or indeed may already be -- engaged by those accused of war crimes relating to the 1971 Liberation War. The imputation here seems to be that this legal opinion was written with a view to assisting the interests of those who will be charged in Bangladesh in the future.

Such a statement is for the IBA to respond to -- but it seems a rather extraordinary allegation that such a committee could ever allow itself to be biased in this manner. Moreover, it is more likely that if any of these committee members were to be involved in any war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh, they would be assisting the Bangladesh government in the prosecution rather than helping the accused.

The Daily Star would also like to point out some important inaccuracies in Rabbani and Rahman's arguments.

-They say that, unlike the 1973 Bangladesh law, the "Right to appeal does not exist in the ICC (International Criminal Court) statute, nor in the ongoing trials in Cambodia or Tanzania." This is not correct. All three of the relevant statutes have complex appeal provisions.

- Article 81 to 85 of the ICC statute deals with rights of appeal -- which are not only allowed following a conviction but during the trial itself, in relation to certain specified issues. Article 24 of the statute that set up the trials in Tanzania following the Rwandan genocide, and Articles 17 and 32 of the statute that sets up the trials relating to Cambodia, also deal with the establishment of an appellate court.

-They say that whilst ordinary criminal law consists of both a mental and a physical element -- that it not the case with "extraordinary offences committed during the law."

- This is inaccurate. One only has to look at Article 13 of the ICC statute which specifically states that: "Unless otherwise provided, a person shall be criminally responsible and liable for punishment for a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court only if the material elements are committed with intent and knowledge." Similar provisions exist in other modern war crimes statutes.

-They also say that "it is absurd to keep a provision giving the right to the accused to challenge the constitution of the tribunal or the appointment of its members" and that such a provision "is not even in the Rome Statute." This again is not correct -- Articles 17 and 19 of the Rome Statute, when read together, provides these rights to the accused.

A key point made by Rabbani and Wali-ur Rahman at various points in the article is that the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 is adequate when judged both by the standards of the 1948 Nuremberg Statute and by jurists in 1974. On this point, the authors are absolutely right. They then, however, go on to argue that the law is therefore adequate. Such a position ignores the fact that the world of international law has developed considerably in the nearly 40 years since the 1973 Act was enacted, and the standards of 1948 or 1973 are simply not considered satisfactory now. This is the point of the IBA's committee's legal advice -- to assess the 1973 Act against current international due process requirements.

The Daily Star is as eager as the authors of the rejoinder in its support for war crimes trials relating to the 1971 war. However, where we seem to differ is that The Daily Star is concerned that consideration is given to ensuring that the trials meet certain minimum international standards. It is for this reason that the paper considered it important to report on what expert independent organisations, like the IBA, have to say about the 1973 Act.

* The legal opinion is available on The Daily Star's website.
** The full list of the committee can be found here:
http://www.ibanet. org/PPID/ Constituent/ War_Crimes_ Committee/ Officers

 


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[ALOCHONA] Fw: War Crimes Act --Golam Rabbani Waliur Rahman stt.and Daily Star Response



 

Dear sirs,

 

Assalamu Alaikum.Please see the rejoinder and the response on the above subject.For once, Daily Star has given a reasonable response to two biased writers known for their partisan approach in most matters.

In my view the whole thing is an unnecessary exercise.The issue of war crime trial does not exist after 1974 agreement among India and Bangladesh and Pakistan.As a result of that Sheikh sahib did not proceed further though the International crime Tribunal act was legislated in 1973.

 

What is happening now after a long time of 38 years is attempt to victimise Islamic forces of the country.All nations, human right group organizations should try to stop this political agenda of a party and small groups like Ghadani and Sector Commanders forum ( in which all sector commanders are not represented)

Shah Abdul Hannan


Rejoinder

War Crimes Act does not need reform

Photo: Christine Balderas

(The following rejoinder was received by us some days ago. We publish it with our reponse given below).

WITH both anger and amusement we read together a news report, published in the first page of the Daily Star of Dhaka, dated January 26 titled "War crimes Act needs reform" which is, as reported, the opinion of the International Bar Association and to say specifically that of its war crimes committee.

The entire opinion was not reported. We tried in vain to get whole of it and so our reply will be incomplete. At the outset it is necessary to state that the International Bar Association, obviously formed by the professional lawyers, cannot claim and we are sure will not claim to be an humane organisation, but its members are engaged in legal profession on payment of fees to defend the persons accused in criminal offences knowingly or without caring to know whether their clients are guilty or not guilty.

We guess some of the members of this Association may be engaged to defend the accused before the War Crimes Tribunal at Dhaka and we further guess some of them may have already been engaged in anticipation of the trial.

There is "significant omission" as stated in that report with regard to protecting the rights of the accused is erroneous vis-à-vis section 17 of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 (hereinafter called as the said Act) which reads: "17. Right of accused person during trial-(1) During trial of an accused person he shall have the right to give any explanation relevant to the charge made against him. (2) An accused person shall have the right to conduct his own defence before the tribunal or to have the assistance of counsel. (3) An accused person shall have the right to present evidence at the trial in support of his defence, and to cross-examine any witness called by the prosecution. "

Further, if convicted, he shall have the right of appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (read section 21 of the said Act). This provision of right of appeal is a unique guarantee to get the fullest justice and this provision was hitherto unknown to the international laws relating to trial of war criminals. Right to appeal does not exist in the ICC statute, nor in the ongoing trials in Cambodia or Tanzania.

Another opinion that "crime against peace should be deleted as it contains outdated statutory language" is also erroneous. They obviously had not in their mind that the Tribunal at Dhaka shall have to try the crimes committed during the war of liberation in Bangladesh. Pakistan authorities declared an unjust treacherous war and its army from the midnight of 26 March 1971 started killing unarmed innocent civilians which was preplanned crime against peace Section 2(b) of the said Act reads: "Crimes against peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances."

This is the copy in toto of crimes against peace as defined in principle vi (i) of the charter of Nuremberg Tribunal.

Another opinion is that there is no mention of an essential element of a criminal offence, namely, mens rea or the guilty mind in the "crimes against humanity." This is the common law that a criminal offence consists of two elements - mental and physical. But this common law is applicable to ordinary offences under the penal code, but not to the extra-ordinary offences committed during the war. Principle 1 of the charter of Nuremberg Tribunal reads: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment," that is, only the physical element is necessary and not the mental element to constitute a war crime.

It is absurd to keep a provision giving the right to the accused to challenge the constitution of the tribunal or the appointment of its members as suggested. This provision is not even in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but its article 41(2) only gives a futile right: "Any question as to the disqualification of a judge shall be decided by an absolute majority of the judges. The challenged judge shall be entitled to present his or her comments on the matter, but shall not take part in the decision." However, there will be always the inherent right to a judge to feel himself embarrassed and he may feel so, if and when necessary.

Another objection is with regard to the provisions of investigation, in particular rules relating to self-incrimination and the suggestions is article 14 of the International Covenant on political rights as well as certain section of the Rome Statute should be included relating thereto. Prosecution is solely concerned with the investigation and the charge would fail if there is no proper investigation.

We have read together several times article 14 of the International covenant on civil and political rights. For lack of space we are unable to quote that article, but we swear that none of the provisions contained in the said Act of 1973 offences any of provisions contained in that article 14. There is a proviso to article 8(5) of the said Act of 1973 which was not noticed that self-incrimination shall not subject the maker to any arrest or prosecution or be proved against him in any criminal proceeding.

The suggestion that certain sections of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court dealing with rights of suspects during investigations should be included in the Act of 1973 would, we are afraid, further delay the trial. If we compare the preamble of our Act of 1973 with that of the Rome Statute of 2002 we will at once realise that there is not an iota of similarity as to the background against which the Act of 1973 or Rome Statute of 2002 was enacted. Act of 1973 was reviewed and fine-tuned by two of the finest international criminal lawyers, Professor Jeseheck and Prof. Otto Von Trifterer who assisted Justice Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial. The two Professors were drawn from the Maxplank Institute of International Criminal Law, Freibourg, Germany.

Later on in December 26-29, 1974, the Third International Criminal Law Conference at Dhaka, endorsed the 1973 Act: some of the jurists were A.N.F. Ballester, Director of Foundation for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Igor Blishchenko, Professor of International Law Institute, Moscow. Subrata Roy Chowdhury of High Court, Kolkata, B. De Schutter, Director, Center for International Criminal Law, Brussels, Justice Krishna Ayer of Indian Supreme Court, Professor Hans Leu of University of Caraces, Professor Shigeru Oda, of Tohoko University of Japan, Professor Robert K. Woetzel, of International Law, Boston College, USA and President of Foundation for the establishment of an International Criminal Court. It may be mentioned that this conference first mooted the idea of ICC.

We are aggrieved by the report in question. For the persons who have prepared the report in question, we quote from the speech of D.N Pritt of UK made before the international conference on prosecution of nazi criminals held on March 25-28, 1969 at Moscow.

"Moreover, these international crimes are not analogous to crimes committed by individuals against the laws and interests of their own states; they are mass crimes organised and planned by the state and not against it, as part of the policy directed to the destruction of the lives of innumerable civilians including children and women indeed of humanity as a whole, and the individuals taking part in the commission of these crimes are in general acting as the servants and not the antagonists of the state and its government. It follows that those crimes, by their very nature and origin, are not such as can be forgiven by the state or expiated by the passage of time, so as to exonerate these individual perpetrators, but are crimes for which neither the state itself nor the individuals can ever be forgiven."

We would, therefore, request our concerned friends in refraining from making such remarks without fully understanding the history, milieu and background of the history of the war of liberation fought by the Bengalees with the help of the allied forces in winning freedom for establishing a democratic, non-communal, secular and equitable society. The trial thus is a necessity and not a luxury to consolidate the democratic aspirations of the Bengalees, a dream of the Father of the nation.

Justice Mohammad Gholam Rabbani is a former judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
Wali-ur Rahman is a former ambassador.

Our response

THE Daily Star would like to make a number of points about the article by Mohammad Gholam Rabbani and Wali-ur Rahman, which was written in response to our news report of January 26 and titled "War crimes act needs reform."

The original January news item reported on legal advice prepared by the International Bar Association' s War Crimes Committee for the UK's All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Committee. The news report did not set out The Daily Star's view on Bangladesh's war crimes legislation but the opinion of this committee as reflected in its legal advice*.

The Daily Star considered it appropriate to report the findings of this committee, since it comprises a renowned group of international criminal lawyers with particular expertise in war crimes law. There are few other similarly expert committees.

Rabbani and Rahman suggest that this committee comprises defence lawyers -- biased toward the interests of those accused of war crimes. But that is not the case.

In fact, the committee's 20-member advisory board includes only two lawyers who have acted in the defence of alleged war criminals. The rest of the committee comprises four senior war crime prosecutors -- including Justice Richard Goldstone who was a former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court. It also includes two judges, Judge Raid Juhi, David Hunt, QC, and Judge Patricia Wald, who sat on the Iraqi, Sierra Leone, and Yugoslavia tribunals, respectively. The committee also includes a whole host of people with a particular commitment to holding war crimes trials -- including David Scheffer, former US ambassador-at- large for war crimes issues, and Larry Johnson, former UN assistant-secretary -general for legal affairs**.

Rabbani and Rahman also suggest that some of these committee members will be -- or indeed may already be -- engaged by those accused of war crimes relating to the 1971 Liberation War. The imputation here seems to be that this legal opinion was written with a view to assisting the interests of those who will be charged in Bangladesh in the future.

Such a statement is for the IBA to respond to -- but it seems a rather extraordinary allegation that such a committee could ever allow itself to be biased in this manner. Moreover, it is more likely that if any of these committee members were to be involved in any war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh, they would be assisting the Bangladesh government in the prosecution rather than helping the accused.

The Daily Star would also like to point out some important inaccuracies in Rabbani and Rahman's arguments.

-They say that, unlike the 1973 Bangladesh law, the "Right to appeal does not exist in the ICC (International Criminal Court) statute, nor in the ongoing trials in Cambodia or Tanzania." This is not correct. All three of the relevant statutes have complex appeal provisions.

- Article 81 to 85 of the ICC statute deals with rights of appeal -- which are not only allowed following a conviction but during the trial itself, in relation to certain specified issues. Article 24 of the statute that set up the trials in Tanzania following the Rwandan genocide, and Articles 17 and 32 of the statute that sets up the trials relating to Cambodia, also deal with the establishment of an appellate court.

-They say that whilst ordinary criminal law consists of both a mental and a physical element -- that it not the case with "extraordinary offences committed during the law."

- This is inaccurate. One only has to look at Article 13 of the ICC statute which specifically states that: "Unless otherwise provided, a person shall be criminally responsible and liable for punishment for a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court only if the material elements are committed with intent and knowledge." Similar provisions exist in other modern war crimes statutes.

-They also say that "it is absurd to keep a provision giving the right to the accused to challenge the constitution of the tribunal or the appointment of its members" and that such a provision "is not even in the Rome Statute." This again is not correct -- Articles 17 and 19 of the Rome Statute, when read together, provides these rights to the accused.

A key point made by Rabbani and Wali-ur Rahman at various points in the article is that the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 is adequate when judged both by the standards of the 1948 Nuremberg Statute and by jurists in 1974. On this point, the authors are absolutely right. They then, however, go on to argue that the law is therefore adequate. Such a position ignores the fact that the world of international law has developed considerably in the nearly 40 years since the 1973 Act was enacted, and the standards of 1948 or 1973 are simply not considered satisfactory now. This is the point of the IBA's committee's legal advice -- to assess the 1973 Act against current international due process requirements.

The Daily Star is as eager as the authors of the rejoinder in its support for war crimes trials relating to the 1971 war. However, where we seem to differ is that The Daily Star is concerned that consideration is given to ensuring that the trials meet certain minimum international standards. It is for this reason that the paper considered it important to report on what expert independent organisations, like the IBA, have to say about the 1973 Act.

* The legal opinion is available on The Daily Star's website.
** The full list of the committee can be found here:
http://www.ibanet. org/PPID/ Constituent/ War_Crimes_ Committee/ Officers

 


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[ALOCHONA] Re: Staged stoning at Daily Star



"Mullahs are Coming"! Cry Wolf in Bangladesh

                                                                          
Taj Hashmi
 
A leading newspaper of Bangladesh, Daily Star, in its Weekly Magazine on February 26 2010 came up with a cover story, "Crime in the Name of Belief". It is about recent caning of three poor women by village elders backed by mullahs in Bangladesh for their (alleged) commission of adultery. The rest of the story is about similar violations of women's rights with impunity in the 1990s. Interestingly, it also displays the recent photo of a village elder in police custody for caning a woman through a salish or informal village court. So far so good. Nevertheless, what is alarming is the demonizing of Bangladesh as an Islamist country or on the verge of becoming one. A dramatized and imaginary image of a village woman being stoned by men appears on the cover of the magazine; as if to portray stoning of women for committing adultery is in vogue in the country!
 
Although Islam does not sanction stoning to death for any crime, including adultery, this is the popular belief due to the prevalence of stoning among certain Islamist countries. While village elders and vested interest groups with poor and compliant mullahs' backing resorted to one or two symbolic stoning (no one was ever stoned to death) in the 1990s; no one has been ever stoned in the country during the last decade and a half. Consequently one wonders as to why this outrageous distortion of reality is being sold as "Crime in the Name of Belief". One wonders as to why some people see the hidden hands of omnipresent Islamists pulling the invisible string to turn Bangladesh into a "Taliban State".
 
Political Islam or Islamism is not a new phenomenon in world history. However, ever since the "least expected" Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the subsequent taking over of the country by Ayatollah Khomeini, the specter of Islamism is haunting the world. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 1996 gave a further shock to the world. Meanwhile, since the end of the Cold War, Islamism has been ascending as an alternative to capitalism, democracy and "dying" communism. Since almost all Muslim-majority countries are former colonies, the Islamic backlash is a postcolonial retaliation against former colonial masters and their "friends". This coincides with the rise of neo-conservative Islamophobia in the West. Thanks to the Islamophobes' and their "ex-Muslim" clients' concerted efforts, the gulf between the two worlds – Muslim and Western – has become wider.
 
The catastrophic 9/11 was the last straw on the camel's back. Henceforth academics, politicians, journalists and laymen in the West started coming up with their own views and arguments on everything Islamic or Muslim; sometimes reflecting their wisdom and scholarship, but mostly their educated guess, ignorance and built-in prejudice against everything Islam and Muslim stand for. These academics, journalists, analysts and observers not necessarily represent the official policy of any country in the East or West. They have been attacking not only the religion and its adherents, Prophet Muhammad and the Holy Quran as obscurantist and promoters of terrorism with impunity; they have also been portraying several Muslim-majority countries as "promoters of terrorism" or "on the verge of staging an Islamist revolution". Bangladesh is no exception in this regard.
 
Bangladesh is full of tragedies and ironies. Due to gross mismanagement and rampant cronyism, soon after the independence in 1971, average Bangladeshis started losing faith in Socialism and Secularism, two of the state-ideologies along with Nationalism and Democracy. Military rulers who ran the country up to 1990, taking full advantage of people's disillusion with so-called socialism and secularism, "Islamized" the country, the constitution and the polity. Soon Islamist obscurantist forces, which had been defeated but not destroyed after 1971, thanks to the patronage of military and civilian rulers from the major political parties including the BNP and Awami League (AL), re-emerged in full vigor at every level. 
 
Meanwhile, side by side with constructive writings and movements against political Islam by human rights and feminist activists in the country, some ultra-radical activists started a vicious campaign not only against Islamism but also against everything Islam and Muslims represented. Very much in tune with Salman Rushdie, Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes and their ilk, Taslima Nasrin emerged as the most radical and controversial Islamophobe in the 1990s. Despite some of her very constructive writings, she started attacking Islam right and left through her prose and poems, essays and fictions. Her malicious writings were / are full of lies and half-truths, reflecting her prejudice against Islam. It seems the prospect of becoming a celebrity overnight as a "victim of Islam" with the blessings of Islamophobes everywhere (which she got aplenty) motivated her most to write against Islam. The aftermath of her ridiculous portrayal of Bangladeshi Muslims as anti-Hindu bigots in her novelette Lajja (or Shame) in 1994 is now history.
 
Since the 1990s there has been a surge in both Islamism and Islamophobia globally. In 1991 for the first time in the history of Bangladesh, Jamaat-i-Islami, the vanguard of Maududi's undemocratic "Islamic State" played the decisive role in forming the BNP-led government under Khaleda Zia. Soon Bangladesh witnessed the rise of several Islamist outfits, some with millennial programs to wage total war of nihilist destruction. While Bangladesh has been going through a turbulent phase, the arch rivals BNP and AL not only resorted to vilifying each other as "anti-Bangladesh"; but they have been also competing against each other to gain more credibility as "Islam-loving" by coaxing various obscurantist Islamist entities. AL's signing an MOU with Islamist Khilafat Majlis in 2006 may be mentioned in this regard; the AL agreed in writing to introduce Shariah law once elected to power jointly with the Khilafat Majlis. However, at the end of the day, BNP emerged as "the winner" in gaining more Islamist support forcing the AL to emerge as the "only champion" of secularism and democracy.
 
As fear-mongering brings rich dividends by undermining political (social and economic) rivals, we also witness crude to not-so-subtle display of hate-crime among politicians and their supporters in the over-polarized polity of Bangladesh. During President Clinton's visit in early 2000, as per Bangladesh government's advice, he had to cancel his scheduled trip to a village not far from Dhaka as the highway was supposed to be "infested" with Islamist terrorists, "beyond the control" of Bangladeshi armed forces. One month after 9/11, we noticed colored posters in Dhaka with photos of Bin Laden and Khaleda Zia together, portraying them as "friends" on the eve of the parliamentary Elections in 2001.
One wonders who resorted to such cry wolf methods without any qualms about tarnishing the image of Bangladesh and portraying a major political party as pro-al Qaeda. This was done more vigorously during the height of HUJI-JMB terrorist activities in the recent past. Within hours after the killing of 57 army officers by border security (BDR) troops in February 2009, sections of the media, civil society and AL smelt Islamist hands behind the carnage; while the court did not find any political motive or Islamist hand behind the killing. This finger-pointing was part of the cry wolf technique to discredit the rival BNP and its Islamist allies.
 
Meanwhile, neither Islamophobes nor Islamists have been sitting idle. Nine-Eleven added a new dimension to the quest for the "New World Order" by liberal democrats, Islamists, erstwhile communists and the marginalized others. Islamophobes and proponents of the unipolar world came up with vitriolic literature and propaganda against Islam and Muslims, some scholars rightly depict as the rise of "Neo-Orientalism" in the West. Side by side with the rise of Islamophobia in the West, there has been tremendous growth in Westophobia among Muslims. One is not sure, if this is what Huntington foresaw as the "Clash of Civilizations"! Then again, as there are self-deprecating rabid Westophobes in the West; the Muslim World, including Bangladesh, is not free from self-denouncing admirers of the West and "Neo-Orientalism".
 
What is distressing is the prevalent culture of hate and mistrust between "liberal-democratic-secular" and "Islam-loving-conservative" people in Bangladesh. The problem is further compounded by the mutual name calling and portrayal of political rivals as "Enemies of Islam" or "Friends of Bin Laden". The Star Magazine's portrayal of "Islamists' stoning women in the countryside" could further widen the gap in the divided polity of Bangladesh. One may mention ill-informed or biased Western journalists' biased writings in this regard. Bertil Lintner, Eliza Griswold, Alex Perry and Selig Harrison have not been helpful in understanding the real issues in Bangladesh. Again, they have ardent admirers among sections of Bangladeshi intellectuals. Since a picture tells a thousand words, the Star Magazine's dramatized image of a Bangladeshi woman being stoned is very damaging to the image of Bangladesh. This portrayal of the country, unfortunately lends support to Lintner's infamous article which in 2002 portrayed Bangladesh as "a cocoon of terror", ripe for an Islamist "revolution".  

 



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[ALOCHONA] 12 extrajudicial killings in Feb



12 extrajudicial killings in Feb
 
 
 
 
A total of 12 people were killed allegedly in the hands of members of law enforcing agencies across the country in between February 1 and February 28, according to a report released On Monday by Odhikar, a rights group.(UNB, Dhaka)

Besides, five Bangladeshi nationals were killed and six others were injured during incidents of human rights violations against Bangladeshi nationals allegedly committed by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) across Bangladesh-India border during the same period last month, the report added.

Among the extra-judicial killings, the report said, seven people were killed in the hands of RAB, three by police while two others during a joint drive by Police-RAB.

Ten incidents occurred during either encounter or crossfire or gun fight, while the remaining two under custody of law enforcers.

On the other hand, a total of 23 people were killed and 1697 others were injured in political violence that occurred across the country in last month.

Among the political violence, a total of 54 intra-party clashes occurred within ranks of ruling Awami Legue, while eight were recorded within main opposition BNP ranks during the same period.

Besides, 14 journalists were injured, eight received threats and eight were manhandled during the period covered by the report.

 http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/leading%20news.htm



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[ALOCHONA] It's Love! India and Saudi Arabia Embrace



Manmohan of Arabia

It's Love! India and Saudi Arabia Embrace

By VIJAY PRASHAD

Construction projects on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai have come to a virtual standstill. Financial agents in the region can't wait to offload the real estate deals that burden the books of the Emirates and its banks, not to mention the international banks whose chambers in London and New York shudder with any mention of more real estate failures. A fire sale has begun, with construction firms like Arabtec now being offered for a song, and as Dubai's own sheikhs bend their knees to Abu Dhabi to help with the $150 billion debt (the IMF says $109 billion, EFG-Hermes pushes it upward). The Sultans of Arabia are displeased. Oil profits sail in, but these are magically converted into petro-dollars that then boomerang to Wall Street, where they are welcomed by Goldman Sachs and its élèves who, these days, lock them up in their vaults, afraid to lend to anyone despite the blandishments of Obama and Bernanke. Petro-dollars are no salve to Dubai's ailments.

Riyadh's first family looks at the margins of their peninsula with concern. The financial turbulence of Dubai is one indication. Another is the rising insurgency in southern Yemen, compounded with the restive radical Islamists, whether in or out of al-Qaeda. The Carter Doctrine (1980) protects U. S. interests in the Persian Gulf, toward which the U. S. created the Central Command to organize this defense. Till now, those interests have included the protection of the House of Saud, whose current king, Abdullah, has effectively governed since 1995. The huge U. S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia since August 1990 served as a barrier against Iraq, but also as a fire-starter for domestic Islamists who were outraged at the presence of U. S. troops in the land of Mecca and Medina (it is this that turned Osama Bin Laden from an anti-communist militant to an anti-American one). Drone attacks in Yemen continue the policy of preserving the petrified Saud family, whose king is now personally worth about $22 billion (he is the third richest royal, after Rama IX of Thailand and Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates). The U. S. is effectively pledged to protect all these billionaire blue bloods against the grievances and aspirations of their own peoples.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recognized after 9/11 that the status quo is not permanent. U. S. wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israeli wars against Lebanon and Gaza, as well as U. S. posturing against Iran have inflamed the Arab population and put the Sultans of Arabia in a box. They cannot be seen to be puppets of Washington, but nor can they alienate their principle benefactors. Anti-Saudi sentiment in the U. S. alarmed the royals (in 2002, a RAND expert told the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, without rebuttal, that Saudi Arabia is a "kernel of evil"; even the ever-pliant Prince Bandar, Saudi Ambassador to the Bush Family, was disheartened). In 2003, the U. S. government relocated much of its forces from their Saudi bases to Qatar. The U. S. then delivered Baghdad to the Shi'a political parties, who have a special relationship with Iran. On the political front, the Saudi royals no longer felt the warm embrace of Washington.

Economically things were even more fragile. Talk of "clean energy" has Riyadh afraid (indeed, at climate treaty negotiations, the Saudis have tried to mobilize the OPEC countries to push for compensation if oil consumption is reduced; the principle Saudi negotiator at Copenhagen, Mohammed al-Sabban proposed that the G-7 states provide the oil producers with technology and investment toward economic diversification). The U. S. has gradually shifted its oil dependence on the Gulf to new suppliers, such as Nigeria (the top three suppliers to the U. S. are now Nigeria, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia - the U. S. imports crude oil from Mexico and Canada in large quantities, but these are refined and exported back across the northern and southern border). The Central Command is busy fighting wars that don't seem to directly defend the Arabian Peninsula. Meanwhile, the Bush team created the African Command (Africom), whose ambit appears to be the protection of the oil lands of Africa. Finally, with oil itself being finite, the Saudis are concerned that they must diversify their economy.

If the Saudis could not look to Washington, Abdullah proposed that Riyadh "look east." Abdullah was always a major defender of Washington inside Riyadh Palace. But after his ascent to the throne, he began to listen more carefully to the Minister of Defense, Prince Sultan (the son of Prince Bandar). For the past three decades, the Chinese have sold the Saudis missile technology, including intermediate-range ballistic missiles. In making these deals, Sultan had a ringside seat to China's transformation and was comfortable with Beijing's ambitions in the Gulf. China is now the principle buyer of Saudi oil. It has also begun to invest in the peninsula, putting some of its considerable surplus to work on technological projects that might help diversify the one-crop Saudi economy. The Saudi oil company, Aramco, has thrown its wealth and expertise into China's petroleum refining sector (it will invest $8 billion to build a new refinery in Guangzhou). Abdullah visited Beijing in January 2006, and Hu Jintao hastened to the peninsula in April, where he addressed the Shura, one of the few foreign leaders to talk to the King's advisory council. Abdullah has since honored China by calling the Chinese his "brothers," a word reserved by Riyadh to describe fellow Muslims.

During Abdullah's January 2006 tour, he stopped in India. Here he was the chief guest at India's Republic Day celebrations. The irony seemed lost on both the Indian and Saudi governments. Here was a hereditary monarch of a theocratic state as the guest of honor for a celebration of India's freedom struggle and its secular, socialist Constitution. Indeed, it was odd to have a Saudi monarch in India. The last time one came was in 1955, when King Saud visited India. Earlier that year, Saud was at the Afro-Asian conference at Bandung, where he had befriended Nehru and had pledged his kingdom to "non-alignment." Not long after this brief friendship, the Saudis gave themselves over to the United States and drifted far from the Third World project. Nehru went to Riyadh in 1956, but it was a frosty visit. The people who gathered to welcome Nehru chanted marhaba Nehru rassoul al salam, welcome prophet of peace, but Crown Prince Faisal and King Saud were less enthused. Peace, for them, came in the form of the F-100 Super Sabre.

In 1991, India's new "reform" era opened with a commitment to neo-liberal state policy and a turn toward Washington against the non-aligned traditions of the dirigiste state. Manmohan Singh left his post at the South Commission for the Finance Ministry, where he guided the reform process. Three years into India's liberalization process, Singh traveled to Saudi Arabia. It had become clear to the Indian Finance Minister and to the Indian business world in general that India had to seek out new avenues for its growing energy needs. The previously state-owned Oil and National Gas Corporation (ONGC) went public, and began to prospect from the Persian Gulf to Sakhalin Island. But even ONGC's finds would not be enough. Singh went to address the Indo-Saudi Joint Commission, a body set up in 1982 on the basis of increased South-South cooperation. Now, the main issue was energy resources for India, and diversification of its economy for Saudi Arabia. The diplomatic process had been stalled by several intractable problems: Saudi Arabia's alignment with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, India and Saudi Arabia's divergence on the imbroglio in Afghanistan, and so on. It was not a pretty picture. But, the economic needs sidelined the political differences, which were soon re-packaged into agreement (both parties, for instance, agreed in general that terrorism is not a good thing, but neither took pains to define who might be the terrorist in which case). Manmohan Singh's journey to Riyadh was followed by a series of visits between the two countries, and an onrush of oil. In 2006, King Abdullah came to Delhi, signed the Delhi Declaration and turned on the spigot: Saudi Arabia is now India's leading crude oil resource ($2.8 billion worth in 2008).

In the late 1990s, when the Hindu Right ruled in Delhi, they made a strategic miscalculation, and so tripped up this relationship. Believing that the way to Washington was via Tel Aviv, and that the political fight against terrorism is far more important than the economic lubricant from Saudi Arabia, the Hindu Right made an entente with Israel (I recount this story in Namaste Sharon, LeftWord, 2003). The Saudi royals sniffed at the poor choice of ally (they prefer their own link to the Israelis to be pragmatically managed by Washington, rather than openly celebrated at Herzilya). It was only when Manmohan Singh returned to power in 2004, this time as Prime Minister, that the far more strategically essential alliance was forged, this around oil and technology, not hot pursuit and targeted assassinations.

Manmohan Singh made his triumphant return to Riyadh over this past weekend (the first time in twenty-eight years that an Indian head of state went to Saudi Arabia). Like Hu Jintao before him, Singh addressed the Shura, and was received by King Abdullah not as "brothers," but as "dearest friends." Deals of oil, capital and technology are hastily being signed. Manmohan Singh's longest handshake was with Saudi Oil minister Ali Al Naimi. The Saudis and Indians celebrated the two million Indians who work in the Kingdom. Many of them, on the other hand, might agree with Habib Hussain of Moradabad, who complained that Indians are treated like cattle in Arabia after he escaped the kingdom in the toilet of a commercial aircraft. The Indian Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs, Vayalar Ravi met with the Saudi Arabian National Recruitment Committee, but nothing concrete came of it. Hard to treat workers nicely whose advantage is that they are international serfs. All the right noises were made, though. Dubai is the sore on the peninsula. It is also the city-state with the greatest Indian influence, whether of bankers, construction workers or gangsters. Not much was said of its financial problems, nor for the elaboration of the Gulf Cooperation Council-India Joint Study Group, set up in 2009 under Saudi auspices. Both Delhi and Riyadh wanted to insulate themselves from the mess in Dubai.

The tangled world of alliances did come up for discussion, but not at center-stage. That was reserved for economic matters. Prince Saud al-Faisal, who runs foreign affairs, pointed out that Pakistan is going through a rough patch, and that the Saudis worry about the "dangerous things" ongoing there. The Indian tweeting minister, Shashi Tharoor, got into his usual mess when the media thought that his use of the term "interlocutor" to refer to Saudi Arabia meant that he wanted the Saudis to mediate peace talks between India and Pakistan. That was not so. But the subject did come up, as did Afghanistan, to which the Saudis made clear that they severed their ties with the Taliban once al-Qaeda took up residence in the country. Once more the right words were spoken, but nothing tangible emerged, not even the usual promise from Riyadh to bring India into the Organization of The Islamic Conference (even as an observer, not as a member). None of these countries wants to take leadership in the recovery of Afghanistan; not as long as the U. S. occupation is ongoing.

What is clear from this new partnership is that India has now given itself over to the political status quo in West Asia. India's reticence from Saudi Arabia was founded on India's fealty to Arab nationalism, whose standard-bearer in the 1950s and 1960s was Gamel Abdul Nasser, the great enemy of the Saudi royal family. Now with the demise of Arab nationalism and the transformation of Indian nationalism, the stage has been set for these two powers of the Indian Ocean to join hands. Abdullah looks east to the two emergent Asian giants, wanting their technological expertise, and to link his kingdom to the Asian Century. Manmohan of Arabia goes home with a trunk full of oil, and the shattered dreams of Arab republicanism that once felt that India was its ally, and whose hopes were lifted when the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz sang his great anti-monarchical anthem, hum dekhain gay (we shall see):

Jab arz-e Khuda ke kaabe se
Sab but uthwaaly jain gay
Hum ehl-e-safa mardood-e-haram
Masnad pe bithaalay jain gay
Sab Taaj uchalay jain gay
Sab Takht giraaiy jain gay.

When from God's palace
All icons will be removed
We who stand in the mosque
Will be elevated to the altar.
All the crowns will be thrown off,
Al the thrones will fall.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College. His book Darker Nations is now out in French (Les Éditions Écosociété) and Swedish (Leopard Förlag). He can be reached at vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu
 


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[ALOCHONA] Re:Staged stoning at Daily Star



Re: Staged stoning at Daily Star

Aasha Mehreen Amin, Editor, The Star
aashamehreen@gmail.com

Dear Ms Kabir,

I was completely flabbergasted by the article you have written about The Star's

'staged photograph' on the cover of an issue. Obviously you have completely missed the point. There was no reason to make ANYONE believe that this was a real photograph. Even a five year old would know that. The cover was meant to be symbolic , this is a common practice in many international magazines, to use symbolic images on covers.

It is called a 'reconstruction of events' a method used by the most reputed news agencies such as the BBC and Al Jazeera use it to illustrate something that couldn't possibly be photographed. We have had covers with symbolic images for many stories such as stories on rape, child pornography, trafficking etc where symbolic pictures have been used. It is ridiculous to assume that there was an evil agenda behind all this. Everything in the actual story is based on facts and quotes from real people. The fact is that these horrible crimes are being committed in villages and we, city people are far removed from this reality. It is our duty to highlight these stories so that crimes against women because of distorted interpretations of religion are stopped. It is ludicrous to think that an actual stoning can be photographed so why would The Star even try to do that? But stoning and lashings of women are true facts. Your comments and the follow up by others are unwarranted and have only served to incite people who either endorse such medieval practices or just want to get a shot at The Daily Star. It is unfortunate and sad that someone as respected as you could actually be part of this.


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